Chapter 44 Magellan
Magellan
Gwynedd’s final message echoed in the chambers of Magellan’s heart. She could feel the love behind the words. Magellan handed the page to Rhys. They were reading the last of the pages together.
Two days had passed since Rhys had woken.
Only today had Godwin finished translating and called them to the library.
Fortunately, Rhys felt well enough to leave the infirmary and move into a bedroom.
He wasn’t anywhere near fully recovered, and to his ire he was being pushed around in a wheelchair belonging to Godwin’s late grandfather, but he was improving.
Now they had read the diary in its entirety.
Rhys put down the last page. Godwin was sitting behind his desk at the alcove. He looked crumpled, tired, but pleased with himself. He’d been sequestered in the library for days feverishly working on the translation.
Magellan recognized his handwriting. This was the translation the Liron Institute had delivered to the Morgan Museum—or would deliver. She fingered the pages. “I’ve seen your translation, in the future.”
“You have?” His face lit up. “However did that occur?”
“The Liron Institute delivered it and the diary to the Morgan Museum on my birthday.”
Godwin peered at Rhys over the brim of his little glasses.
“Do you hear that, dear boy? We have an institute in the future. How marvelous. So!” Godwin took off his glasses with a dramatic pause.
“If I’m to understand this correctly”—he made a circular motion to the pages—“the Earth is in the throes of being destroyed, and here we are, reunited inside an ancient labyrinth to find a song that was hidden millennia ago by a planetary goddess—who happens to be secretly buried at Stonehenge, mind you—who went against ‘cosmic forces’ to save the Earth. And she has entrusted women, with Gwynedd, i.e., Magellan, as her fearless captain, to reassemble the song when the time comes, and tasked a Sumerian immortal to help because extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. Does that about sum it all up?”
No one said a word. Godwin wasn’t asking for an answer. Instead, he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Magellan and Rhys glanced at each other.
Then Godwin said, “Liron.”
Magellan waited for him to explain.
“The Earls of Liron. Guardians of Hereford Labyrinth and a stone circle created by Merlin himself.” Godwin then said to Rhys, “A title usually denotes a place on a map, but our title does not. Have you never wondered why? It was bestowed upon our family by the first king of England. Do you know what our namesake means, dear boy?” Godwin had taken to calling Rhys “dear boy” in jest, though Rhys was presently five years older.
Rhys shook his head. “No, dear Father, would you care to enlighten me?”
“Liron means sing to me.”
Magellan could feel the prick of tears sting her eyes and couldn’t stop them.
Sing to me.
Godwin leveled his gaze to her. “Now. Magellan. Have I earned the right to hear the rest of your story? Tell me of the song you and my son have been seeking. I take it that is why you are here in 1799.”
Magellan nodded, her anxiety about their quest returning.
They had come so far. Centuries in fact, being propelled by a force beyond their understanding, and they were almost out of time.
She stared at the ring on her finger and held it up for him to see.
“This is Gwynedd’s ring, and the symbols match the labyrinth’s standing stone. Garesh gave it to me.”
Astounded, Godwin took her hand to study it. “Know the way.” He looked up at them both.
Magellan felt Rhys’s fingers lace in hers. She stared at their joined hands, feeling the strength flow between them. Together they had made the journey. She truly couldn’t have done it without him, and now they needed Godwin’s help to finish it.
She told Godwin everything. About Fanny Mendelssohn, Hildegard of Bingen, and Maddalena Casulana. She tried to explain how the song was a symphony, and she was gathering the bones of it but would need countless musicians to bring it to life.
Godwin fingered the pages of the translation. “And the final part of the song was left to her beloved son, Horus.” He stared at the library’s walls, lost in thought. “Incredible.”
“What is it?” Rhys asked.
“Horus.” Godwin jumped up, galvanized, and headed to the bookshelves. The library was filled with thousands of books on towering shelves, and yet Godwin strode up one of the staircases to a top shelf with purpose. He soon came back down, carrying a thick tome, and set it on the table next to them.
Magellan read the gold lettering on the binding, Myths of Ancient Egypt and Sumer.
Godwin began explaining in a great rush.
“Like Sir Isaac Newton, I believe the ancient world possessed technology and wisdom long since lost. Newton’s unorthodox beliefs on the matter only came to light after his death.
” Magellan was nodding along, although she had no idea where this was going.
He said, “I even have one of his notebooks in my alchemy collection, as well as some of the burnt pages recovered from the fire in his laboratory—”
“Father.”
“You’re right. I digress. Napoleon’s unfortunate pillaging and exploits in Egypt aside, his surveyors there discovered that like the stone circles, the Great Pyramid holds mathematical codes.
I believe there is a direct connection between the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians to the Druids and their megaliths.
Gwynedd all but confirms it in her diary. ”
Rhys was frowning. “How?”
Godwin tapped on the large book he’d just laid on the table and began to carefully turn its pages.
“First, the music and math she details in her diary is very similar to what Pythagoras wrote on what he learned from mystics in Egypt. Second, all mythologies around the world are in fact quite consistent with each other. Isis, the Goddess of Love and Queen of the Heavens, goes by many names: Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte, Esther. She is the most powerful of the world’s pantheon and the last superbeing to live in this world before the end of the Golden Age. ”
Magellan wasn’t looking at the book. She was looking at Godwin, his intensity giving her goose bumps. He slid the book toward them to show the image he’d found. On the page was a painting of a goddess riding a lion with sunbeams bursting around her head.
“Horus was her son. Part man, part superbeing, the last ruler on Earth connected to the heavens. Connected to the galaxy and the cosmic worlds we were once a part of before whatever galactic battle transpired. And according to Gwynedd, Horus has the final piece of the song.”
They all stared at the book.
“So!” He clapped his hands, like a professor concluding his lecture. “It seems we are on an ancient quest for the goddess Isis. A quest that began lifetimes ago.”
The whole idea seemed impossible. As impossible as Magellan sitting in an earl’s library in 1799.
If, somehow, she did assemble the song in its entirety, she had to find Horus and the last part when she got back home.
Then she had to get the world to come together to play it.
She had no idea how she was supposed to do that.
She was just one woman. Yes, her capacity for music was beyond the normal spectrum.
But now Godwin was talking about goddesses and superbeings from other planets and ancient myths being real.
She stared at the painting of Isis. The goddess who supposedly loved humanity so much, she refused to give us up.
“Who are you here for?” Godwin broke the silence, asking the question that had been circling her thoughts for days. “Do you know?”
“No, not yet,” she admitted. Her mind was drawing a blank on women composers in 1799 England.
“Well, you must find out quickly. December is upon us,” Godwin pointed out, and Magellan felt her stress level rise.
“She will.” Rhys reached over and took her hand. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You will.”
She wanted to tell him she was not only worried about not knowing, she was worried about when she did know and the Ley Lines took her back. Would Rhys come with her?
Godwin gave their joined hands a perplexed look. She and Rhys were acting way too familiar with each other for his 1799 sensibilities.
Godwin stood up, announcing it was time for dinner, and rang a bell for one of the footmen to come and wheel Rhys. He gallantly offered Magellan his arm, and they all made their way to the dining room.
Dinner had already been set on the table, and Godwin dismissed the servants again so they could talk freely.
Days ago, he had explained to the household staff that Rhys was a distant cousin and Magellan was Rhys’s wife.
The couple had journeyed to Hereford Manor but had met with great misfortune on the way.
Their carriage had been robbed by highwaymen, with everything stolen, even their trunks.
Godwin had spun the tale with relish. The unfortunate couple had made it to Hereford Manor, hobbling pitifully on foot, with Mr. Sherwood mortally wounded.
Certain he was dying, Rhys’s last wish was to visit the center of the labyrinth where he had played as a child with his beloved distant cousin.
The staff had listened solemnly and accepted Godwin’s outlandish story that sounded straight from the pages of a gothic novel.
His dearest cousin from childhood and lovely wife had been given separate bedrooms near each other while Mr. Sherwood recovered.
And if anyone noticed the remarkable resemblance between the Earl of Liron and his distant relation, no one mentioned it.
They ate in silence until Godwin finally said, “Well, there’s no denying the fact I am Merlin,” he announced as if commenting on the pea soup.
Rhys choked on his wine.